


Purple Moons Over the Horizon

by K_Popsicle



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Anonymity, Bad Weather, Fictional Religion & Theology, M/M, Post-Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Religion made them not do it, Sharing a Bed, Strangers, Time Travel, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-04 19:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20476265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_Popsicle/pseuds/K_Popsicle
Summary: Luke Skywalker shelters in a small hut in the company of another Jedi and learns about the code of the Jedi. He's not sure how he got there, but he thinks it's probably time travel.





	Purple Moons Over the Horizon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yujacheong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujacheong/gifts).

Luke opens his eyes against the glow of twin purple moons and is struck with nostalgia of a childhood of sand and daydreams. But the air is damp and the sky is violet and periwinkle. It is no desert wasteland ready to swallow everything that stands still too long. He wets his lips, closes his eyes, and breathes with the ebb and flow of the world around him.

It is a small planet. There are battles across its surface. Life forces bigger than rancors. Forests older than then the ocean clashing against the nearby shore. Kyber crystals. On instinct Luke focuses on those, because they are small and scattered. Not a natural source, foreign to the planet, and a note of interest to his research. If time allows once he has discovered why he is here, and where here is, he will consider the mystery. It is unlikely to be that simple though, because the last thing he remembers is navigating through the old temple carved into the cliff faces of Terlinous, traveling paths illuminated by the glow of amethyst firefly’s, shuffling through dust older than the Jedi Order, sleeping in dark corners as the days wore on, seeking out the secrets in its depths.

This is not the same planet, certainly not even the same system, and he can feel the force acting upon him, like it’s soaked into his skin from the outside in, but not the purpose of it.

“Please, don’t get up on my account.” A friendly voice admonishes and Luke focuses on the here and now. The here and now, he finds when he turns his head in the direction of the other man, is unexpected.

“You’re a Jedi.” He observes and rolls to stand but stops mid motion, knee on the ground, when he feels and sees the activation of the blue lightsabre. He looks up at the other man, and pretends to stand.

“Don’t.” The stranger warns. He’s got a curled smile, like he thinks this is amusing but Luke takes the warning as a real one. “You don’t belong here.” The man observes and Luke lifts a shoulder in a quick shrug.

“What are you going to do about it?” He challenges, his robotic hand curled into the dirt by his knee.

The man seems perturbed by the question, as if Luke has dumbed a great duty on his shoulders he did not want, its confirmed when he rubs his trimmed beard and considers the horizon.

“I don’t have time to take you back so you’ll have to come with me.” The Jedi decides. He does not seem thrilled with the plan, but he is assured. Luke lets the dust slide out from between his gloved fingers and stands.

The Jedi steps back, gives himself space in case of attack.

“If you insist.” Luke indicates he’s ready to go with an inclination of the head. The other man points with the end of his lightsabre down to the beach and into the distance. Luke starts his trek down the stone stairs, passed the fuchsia flowers dotting the edges and onto the damp sand. The ocean licks at his boots as he walks, the Jedi behind him follows quietly, lightsabre deactivated.

There’s a small hut around the headland, they reach it as the rain begins to fall in sheets blown in from the ocean. Luke ducks in through the small doorway, his hand on the frame, and observes the small space. There’s a bed, a fire, and a small table made for sitting on the floor. It’s cosy, not tiny like Yoda’s hut had been, but it feels like a home. It does not, however, feel like the Jedi behind him’s home.

“Nice place you have here.” Luke compliments fingers running over a small straw doll with intricately braided magenta hair. It’s very not the Jedi who follows him into the space grumbling about the weather. “It’s very, you.” Luke can feel the echo of the person who lived here, he breathes it in and lets it wash away. A rush of packing, prioritising, the hope that they can return, the knowledge that they never will.

“Very funny.” The man quips and shakes a layer of water off his shoulders then flicks it from his hair. Luke looks at this Jedi, the mans about the same age as him, his blonde hair falls foppishly over his face in wet strands, his eyes are slate blue, and his robes are immaculate. Intricate in a way Luke hadn’t expected Jedi robes to be, but there’s no mistaking them from the statues and archives Luke has managed to find scattered across the galaxy. He’s almost more interested in the robes than the man himself, but then the man smiles and it’s an easy open expression with just a slightly raised eyebrow that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle and Luke never thought a Jedi could be so human.

Then the man’s eyes settle on the doll and his expression sobers, “The hut has been empty since we arrived. I don’t know what happened to the dolls owner.”

Luke accepts it, but he’s accepting a lot right now. For one, there is a Jedi before him, not a ghost, but a man in the flesh. He’s dreaming, or hallucinating, but it feels real. So maybe he’s been moved, through time? He’s heard about these things before, when he found the location of the temple on Terlinous there had been something about time. Time folding? It had been in an old dialect, he had been looking for better translations. But whatever the fact, there is a Jedi before him and Luke is willing to go along with whatever this is the force has put him in the middle of.

“We?” He asks conversationally, and the Jedi gives him an unimpressed look. Luke sets that down enquiry because its apparently so obvious it doesn’t deserve an answer, which is a pity because he doesn’t have any idea how long ago this might be.

Conversation after that is sparse, and Luke moves where he is told to move, eats the gruel that the Jedi gives him, and watches with as much patience as he can muster. He’s a captive in as much as he has allowed himself to be one, but at no point has the Jedi checked him for weapons, or even mentioned them. The implication is that whatever weapons Luke might have don’t concern him. There’s something of that solid confidence that Luke admires in Han to this man, and he has nowhere else to be so he follows. The rain blows in sheets against the huts walls, the windows at the front show a stormy shore, and it is warm, and comfortable, and Luke has not seen another person for many weeks while he hunts out the old Jedi artefacts to rebuild something of what was.

When the night wares on the Jedi takes the bed, still wearing his shoes, and curls his cloak around himself.

“Where am I to sleep?” Luke asks, arm draped over his raised knee as he leans back against the huts wall. The fire licks warmth up his side as he watches the other man get comfortable. He feels lazy and indulgent and it is nothing like the times he’s had to quarter close with Han or Chewie during their adventures.

“I’m hoping,” the man tells him his back to Luke, “that you’ll sneak out in the night and I’ll never have to see you again,” and then for all Luke can see, he goes to sleep.

The wind outside howls, the rain floods down, and Luke folds his lightsabre into his cloak and makes a soldier’s bed by the fire. There is only time and nowhere to go.

The storm is still raging the next morning when the stranger steps over him to prod the fire back into life, and Luke looks sideways up at the man, polished boots and robes in perfect place.

“How long will the storm last?” He asks languidly, his back cramps a little from the hard floor but he is not ready to move yet. The man looks down at him and is clearly unhappy that he has not taken the night to escape. “It’s raining.” He explains as he sits up and there’s a rumble of distant thunder rolling in across the ocean

“And it doesn’t appear it will stop soon.” The man steps back to his bed and withdraws something from his belt, a small commutations device that produces more static than sound. The report is brief, lacking in information after the initial “I appear to have a guest” and Luke finds nothing of interest in the exchange except for the distinct crack of blaster fire that makes it through the static.

“Should you be there?” Luke asks, an itch to fight and be _useful_ under his calves. The stranger gives him a judgmental look and packs the device back into his belt pouch.

“Are you a local?” He asks Luke, and Luke laughs a little at the idea. This planet is too lush, to full of life even in the middle of a battle, to be his home.

“I’m visiting.” He offers.

“A bad time of year for a tourist, don’t you think?”

“If you were to meet your younger self,” Luke asks seriously, “what would you tell him?”

“You’re don’t look anything like me.” The Jedi replies without pause, but he’s curious Luke can see it. Luke leans his head back against the wall and waits. The man might leave, in this storm, but Luke will just follow him. “Put some water on.” He instructs at last, and Luke rolls to obey, setting the pot over the fire on its hook, then sits back on the balls of his feet and waits. “I would tell him,” The Jedi considers it further, gives it more due thought than Luke expected him to, “that training a little one is harder than it seems, and that nosey spies ask too many questions.” He glares at Luke over this and Luke meets the glare.

“I’m not a spy.” He promises helpfully, “Just a curious traveller.”

The man doesn’t respond, leans back against the wall and puts his foot against the table. The casual ease of his body is enticing in an unexpected way. Luke looks out the window, but it is darkened by the storm and there is nothing to do but focus on the other man.

Luke spends the day asking questions about the Jedi, the answers he gets range from interesting to sarcastic to completely useless. He asks easy questions, questions that he thinks most people should know, things that have been lost in the single generation since the fall of the Jedi Order. Like even whispering the name of the Jedi would bring down the wrath of the empire. He asks the age the Jedi are recruited, how they are recruited (this returns no answer), what kind of classes Jedi’s attended in the temples, what kind of tests were taken to prove mastership (the resulting answer that they had to wrestle the oldest wisest Jedi until they yielded was said with the driest most weary tone that Luke took the hint and left questions about tests alone), and the code a Jedi was expected to live by.

Hearing it from a Jedi, even one who was so bored that he had taken off his belt to scratch out sand from the stitching, was a revelation but one he wasn’t expecting.

“You don’t form attachments?” Luke repeats at a loss. “What of your siblings?”

“The Jedi Order are my brothers, and sisters.” The second is added haphazardly.

“So, if I had a sister-”

“A Jedi must relinquish all family attachments.” The man explained patiently, as if he had explained this same thing many times before.

“That sounds-” Luke hesitated, but the man was watching him, expectant, so he says “-sad.” There was pity in his voice, he knew, for the idea of giving up Leia now that he knew her, even giving up his father. Such sacrifices were too much to ask of a man.

“And what would you do then?” the man asked him, and he sounded curious, interested, he sounded familiar but Luke was not sure which voice he most sounded like in that moment.

So, Luke shrugged and flexed his gloved hand and said, “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

Apparently, this Jedi isn’t in a rush to go anywhere, and whatever force has brought him to this place is in no hurry to remove him. His host gets a short report on his communications device but nothing else disturbs the questions and not-answers until the firewood runs out. They’re both watching it dwindle towards the end of the day, the storm still battering at the walls and Luke doesn’t know this planet, how long storms last, all he knows is that as the fire dwindles and they ration the wood to keep it going longer rather than warmer, the room cools rapidly.

“We’ll have to share the bedding.” The man says when the night wears on and the temperature drops so much that Luke has started to shiver against the ice in the air. He motions to the bundle of Luke’s cape, “but leave your weapon where it is.”

Luke doesn’t question it, instead he leaves the bundle where it is, and approaches the bed. He is too cold to argue the offer and the plush plum blankets that have been ignored until now look soft enough to sink into. The other man folds the blanket back and Luke rolls his eyes and crawls over him to take the place up against the wall. It’s the space with the least fighting room, and it’s been done strategically and intentionally.

But once he’s settled down and the blanket is draped over them both, the long line of warmth along his back of another human, Luke isn’t bothered at all. He settled into the first bed he’s been in for nearly a year and lets himself drift off to sleep.

Luke wakes to quiet and warmth. He opens his eyes slowly, the room is bathed in lilac, the winds have died down, and there is the gentle lapping of waves in the near distance. But closer there is the soft sounds of another person breathing, close and wrapped around Luke. He feels the arm tight over his chest, the press of a body up against his own and he misses fiercely this kind of contact. This kind of closeness.

He doesn’t get this close to strangers usually and he’s spent so long around this man now that it inspires something in him he hasn’t felt for quite some time. He turns within the arm, examines the strangers features and thinks about what it would be like to _feel_ something more. He leans in slowly curious, and a hand on his chest stops him short.

The hand rises and falls rapidly with each inhale and exhale and Luke meets the other man’s eyes.

“A Jedi shall not form attachments.” The man says, and Luke doesn’t know if it’s apology, or warning, or explanation. Maybe all three. What it is, is a no.

Luke breaths through the sharp feel of rejection. He barely knows the man, doesn’t know his name, but it hurts to not be wanted.

“It’s not that I’m not interested.” The man rolls out of the bed, smooth as an athlete and Luke stays where he is because he feels a bit like he lost an opportunity but also that he overstepped a boundary he should not have. “Jedi just don’t do that.” He explains, and Luke throws an arm over his face to save himself seeing and being seen.

“Are you sure?” He asks thinking about his father. Vader certainly did exactly that or he and Leia wouldn’t be alive.

The man hesitates, Luke can feel it without looking, “Jedi are not supposed to do that.” He says more clearly, “and if a Jedi were, it would be a breach of the very rules they had sworn to uphold.”

Luke knows the only noise he would make to that would be bitter, thinking about his father again. The great Jedi Knight who murdered them all. Where would Vader’s love lie on the balance of his crimes, Luke wondered. “I’ll get more firewood, in case the storm returns.” The man, the Jedi says, and then he leaves the hut, ducking out through the low doorway.

Luke lays there for some time, breathes in and out and listens to the Jedi move further along the beach towards the settlement. He lets himself feel the force, lets himself calm and settle, and then he stands, unfurls his cloak and pulls it over his shoulders, clips his lightsabre back onto his belt and leaves the hut. Water drips from the roof and splashes cold down his neck, but the skies are clear, and there are birds chirping in nearby trees.

For the first time in a long time he feels lonely.

When he returns, he knows, he will put his quest on hold and visit his family. Han, Leia, Chewy, maybe Lando will be there. He will hug each of them as tight as he can and remind himself that the life he lives is only worth living because of the people in it. He is not a Jedi like this, he is not beholden to their code. Family, attachments. As he stares at the twin moons, bathed in their lavender light, water lapping at the toe of his boots, and he feels the pull of the force as it wraps up around him and draws him back to where he belongs. Not here, where your heart must lay dormant, but to the future he can build, where love is not considered a weakness but a strength.

**Author's Note:**

> First: Why doesn't Luke recognise Obi-Wan? If you knew Alex Guinness then met Ewan McGregor you also would not think they were the same person.
> 
> Second: "That's not how the force works." It is now.
> 
> Third: I don't have a third, I just like lists.
> 
> Fourth: (I guess this could have been third.) I wanted it to seem like Obi-Wan, if not for his vows, would have said yes. I hope that feeling comes across, at least a little.
> 
> Fifth: Hopefully not naming Obi-Wan doesn't feel too awkward.


End file.
